Звезда Пандоры

She soared silently and smoothly over the towering cliffs of Aphrodite’s Seat that guarded the eastern approach to Herculaneum’s summit. Many kilometers below them was the glacier ring that encircled the entire volcano, extending hundreds of meters across the bare rock. Sunlight glinted from the gritty fractured ice, producing a halolike aura at the upper limit of the atmosphere. Sheltering beneath the glare were the alpine forests, gene-modified Earth pines that had been introduced here as a beacon of life and color that could be seen for hundreds of kilometers. She smiled down on them, as she would any old friend, grateful for the comfort of familiarity that they brought.

Ghostly waves of blue and green began to shimmer across the weather radar screen as the hyperglider sank back into the upper atmosphere, showing her the pressure building outside the fuselage. Justine extended the wings again, shaping them into a broad delta. After a while, the cockpit began to tremble as the leading edges bit deeper and deeper into the air. Aerodynamic forces started to take over from the ballistic impetus.

Justine slowly shook off the dreamy lethargy that had captured her during the flight over the volcano. Practical decisions had to be made; from this altitude she could easily coast along for four or five hundred kilometers, putting her well clear of the volcano. But ahead, that would put her into the Dessault Mountains; while north and south would take her back into the divided wings of the storm. There was also distance to consider, the farther she flew now, the longer it would take the caravan to recover her. She altered the hyperglider’s pitch, putting the nose up so the air would start to brake her speed. Her rate of descent increased, which she balanced against the slope below, maintaining the same height above the ground. Clouds flashed around her, ablaze with bright monochrome light, as she passed through the level of the glacier ring. When the hyperglider fell out of their base she was above the pine forests. She could see grasslands stretching out beyond them. Easy enough to land on, but they were still high. It would be cold.

The grasslands grew more lush and verdant as she flew on. Swirls of wind from the lower slopes began to affect the hyperglider, shaking it with growing strength. Bushes and trees speckled the grasses, building swiftly to a dense tropical rainforest that formed an unbroken skirt around the eastern base of the volcano. Looking down, she could see the small black dots of birds flitting amid the treetops. She was already eight hundred kilometers from where she’d started, and that was in a direct line. The caravan would have to go all the way around Mount Zeus before it even reached Herculaneum. Justine sighed, and pushed the hyperglider down toward the rainforest canopy.

This close, it wasn’t as dense as she’d thought. There were clear swaths, shallow valleys with fast silver streams that had hardly any trees at all, lines of dangerous crags. Several times she saw animals racing across open spaces. The Commonwealth Council’s biosphere revitalization project had certainly been successful here.

The radar switched to ground-mapping mode. Justine was searching for a reasonable patch of ground to land on. Although, in extremis, the hyperglider could come down in a patch barely a hundred meters long, she didn’t fancy trying that. Fortunately, the scans revealed a straightish stretch three kilometers ahead and to the north. She brought the hyperglider’s nose around, lining it up. The clear ground was easily visible amid the trees. It looked like there was a clump of rock a third of the way along. Nothing too serious. When she switched the radar to a higher resolution, it showed a narrow, shallow gully running across one end of the clear ground. She started her prelanding flare, shrinking the wings in again, enhancing the camber. The edge of the long clearing rushed toward her. Three of her console display screens distorted into a hash of random color.

“Shit!”

Her e-butler was slow to respond, reporting several processors dropping out of the onboard array, even her inserts were degraded.

“What’s happening?” she demanded. Her virtual hands flickered and vanished.

A gust of wind slewed the hyperglider to starboard. She groaned in dismay as the cockpit tilted. The console screen displays were making no sense.

“Multiple electronic system failure,” the e-butler said. “Compensating to restore core function.” Hands wavered back into her virtual vision. “You have control.”

Justine automatically countered the dangerous roll with a simple wing twist. The little craft responded sluggishly, forcing her to accentuate the maneuver. When she glanced up from the console she cursed. She was already over the clear ground, and losing altitude fast. All her display screens had righted themselves. Control surface responses were instantaneous again.